How To Use Adobe Photoshop CS2
Part 1. Getting Started with Photoshop
Task 1 Welcome to Photoshop, Bridge, Camera Raw, and ImageReady 6 2 How to Use the Toolbox 8 3 How to Use the Menu Bars 10 4 How to Use Photoshop and ImageReady Palettes 14 5 How to Use the Color Picker 16 6 How to Select a Color 18 7 How to Browse Files in Bridge 20 8 How to Use Rulers, Grids, and Guides 22 9 How to Use Color Management 24 10 How to Set Photoshop Preferences 30 11 How to Set ImageReady Preferences 42 12 How to Set Bridge Preferences 50 13 How to Set Camera Raw Preferences 58 Most people look at Photoshop as a program that has many levels of complexity. They say things such as, "I probably don't use 10% of the program," or "I just use it to open my digital camera images." Although it's true that Photoshop has a deep level of complexity, it's also true that the program is easy for the beginner to use. This is one of the features that has made Photoshop so popular: It's easy to jump in and get started and, as your needs grow, the program grows right along with you. The first step in getting started is to set up Photoshop to work the way you want it to work. How do you set the preferences? What about customizing the desktop or setting ruler increments? You should consider a few customizable features, as well as specific tools built in to the program that can come in handy with almost any file on which you might be working. Because Adobe includes ImageReady as part of Photoshop CS2, you also should consider how to optimize ImageReady for the way you work and familiarize yourself with how ImageReady integrates with Photoshop. Because ImageReady is focused more on web design, consider whether ImageReady's slicing, scripting, and optimization controls offer advantages over those provided by Photoshop. Specifically, check out the control ImageReady provides over HTML protocols, naming conventions, and other control sets in the ImageReady Preferences box. Adobe now ships Bridge, which is a standalone file-access application you can use to locate and then open a file in any of the Creative Suite 2 applicationsPhotoshop, Illustrator, GoLive, InDesign, and Camera Raw (a plug-in that lets you access and use Raw files as they come off your digital camera). With Bridge, you have opportunities to optimize how these two applications work as well, so you should become familiar with the Preferences windows for these applications. • |